


thunder only happens when it's raining

by themorninglark



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Slice of Life, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 03:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10235303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: He could still hear the electric beat of the music thrumming by his collarbone, below his ear, as Kageyama’s eyes widened like no one had ever asked him to do something with them before.In which theleitmotifsof Iwaizumi Hajime and Kageyama Tobio keep on looping, and everything leads to something real, in the end.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Molnija](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molnija/gifts).



> This is for Nija, who gave me a wonderful array of rarepairs and prompts to play with! I wish I could have written them all, but I hope you enjoy this IwaKage + music (loosely, very loosely). Thank you for the chance to write these two, they're a pair I lowkey really love a lot but haven't written for at length, and in the writing of this fic I discovered all over again how much I enjoy them.
> 
> I looped [The Corrs' cover of "Dreams"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BglEyv5O2Y) while writing this. You can listen to it for the full experience.

 

 

 

They had been climbing all this while, and they stood now on the top of a mountain.

 _Well_ , thought Iwaizumi, that made it sound grander than it was. He wasn’t sure this counted as a _mountain_ sort of mountain; now that they had made it this far, it struck him as more of a modest hill. Either way, it was just part of the Miyagi skyline, like the sloping rooftops, like the birds on the power lines. They saw it every day in the distance from their apartment window.

It wasn’t anything special, but they were here, now, and that was enough.

He lowered his backpack and sat down on a rock. The ground was crumbly beneath the soles of his shoes. The day had grown warm, and it smelled like grass, the wild, sun-soaked kind that would tickle the back of his neck if he lay down on it.

Kageyama, standing beside him, clapped his hands together with a loud _smack_. Iwaizumi’s head jerked up.

“Flies,” said Kageyama. “Sorry, Iwaizumi-san.”

“Don’t be. Water?”

Iwaizumi reached for his bottle and tossed it over. Kageyama caught it without blinking. “Thanks.”

“Drink more. I’ve got plenty,” said Iwaizumi. He ran the sleeve of his track jacket over his forehead. It came away damp with sweat, so he took it off, balled it up and stuffed it into his backpack. The breeze that whipped at his bare arms was sticky. Better than nothing.

“I brought a milk box,” said Kageyama.

Iwaizumi chuckled. “My bad. Of course you did.”

He leaned back. The rock was rough and sharp in places, gritty where the wind had blown loose earth. His callused palms settled on it with ease.

The setting sun kissed the horizon red like a firework trail. Overhead, there was a rustling from the zelkovas, and the call of the bush warblers was thick among the leaves. In a few minutes, the crickets would start and then they’d never hear the end of it. Summer, a summer this side of Sendai, was a cacophony that reminded Iwaizumi of skinned knees and broken branches, an ache as fiercely sweet as it was constant.

“Not as quiet as I thought it’d be up here,” he remarked.

Kageyama nodded. “I like it. It feels real.”

He was still on his feet, clutching Iwaizumi’s bottle, and he had not bothered wiping off his sweat. Iwaizumi could see it glisten on his brow where the blinding rays caught them both.

There was a hush in the golden hour, and silence, and in the silence, noise and symphony that resonated in a place he could reach out and touch.

“Real, huh?” Iwaizumi turned the word over in his mouth. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He was still on his feet, clutching a milk box, and he had not bothered wiping off his sweat.

It was far too early to have broken into a sweat like that for no good reason, and Iwaizumi knew that Kageyama must have run from home, up the punishing slopes of their neighbourhood and defiant into the face of a new-risen sun. He always did. Never mind that there would be more running to come. It was never enough.

(Would it ever be enough? Iwaizumi didn’t know, couldn’t imagine; he had never been the imaginative sort anyway.

He opened his eyes and saw what was in front of him.)

The thunder of footsteps had yet to descend upon them. Along with the cicadas’ song, the slurping of milk through a bent straw was the only sound in the schoolyard at this hour. As he approached the gym, Kageyama looked up.

“Kageyama,” said Iwaizumi.

He lowered his headphones round his neck and went over. The morning was still cool, but all around them, the day was stirring into wakefulness. Soon it would be unbearably hot and his arms would burn.

“Why are you so early?”

A furrow appeared on Kageyama’s brow. “Iwaizumi-san. I’m not early.”

“You’re incredibly early,” Iwaizumi said. “ _I’m_ incredibly early because I’m helping Coach to set up the nets. What’s your excuse?”

Kageyama’s grip twitched round the milk box. Iwaizumi thought he might crush it. The cardboard started to crumple, like an inhale squeezed in tight.

“I didn’t have anything else to do,” he said.

“I see,” said Iwaizumi.

He shouldered his satchel, reached into his pocket for the keys and started up the steps to unlock the doors. Kageyama’s gaze followed. It stayed on him, frank and piercing, and it struck Iwaizumi that there was no difference, no difference between _this_ and the way he looked on the court. Kageyama Tobio carried his searing focus around with him like a razorblade sticking out of his back pocket. He didn’t know it was there and everyone else could see it. There were those who felt it pressing against their throats, choking the life from them.

Iwaizumi was not one of these people. He sighed, and turned back.

“Since you’re here, why don’t you help me?”

He could still hear the electric beat of the music thrumming by his collarbone, below his ear, as Kageyama’s eyes widened like no one had ever asked him to do something with them before.

In his hand, the milk box exhaled.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He could still hear the electric beat of the music thrumming by his collarbone, below his ear.

He did not know what he was listening to. It was some angsty rock mix that Oikawa had made and put on his phone one day, in a strop and a temper and as a prank; it had backfired in spectacular fashion, for Iwaizumi found that he did not dislike it after all. He especially enjoyed cranking up the volume on it when he was working out, or needed a distraction.

He did not know what he was listening to, and so when Kageyama asked, the only answer Iwaizumi could give was, “Hold my coffee.”

With his free hands, he took off his headphones and tucked them roughly round Kageyama’s ears.

They could have been anywhere. In the sweltering sunshine, under another tree with scant shade; under the floodlights, in locker rooms and stairwells where Iwaizumi had stopped in his tracks to look back at Kageyama, calling his name. They could have been in all of these places, and they _had_ been, but today, they were at an ordinary train station just outside Sendai and for once it was not Iwaizumi who was going on ahead. They stood behind the yellow line, a ticker-tape of destinations flashing on the board above them.

Kageyama had not packed any check-in luggage. He only had a plain carry-on with him, lighter than it looked. He’d had to buy it for the occasion, because he had never been away for such a long time and all his duffel bags were too small.

Without his music, the hum of the crowd was a rising tide to Iwaizumi. Footsteps and conversations echoed down the platform, an ebb and flow that swelled and then carried themselves along the train tracks, away and beyond. The taut black cord of his headphones, wrapped around his phone, looped its way out of Iwaizumi’s pocket and up towards Kageyama.

Iwaizumi noticed the slight straining tug on it, noticed Kageyama lowering his head slightly. He’d always been tall. He had outgrown Iwaizumi by his last year in junior high. Iwaizumi doubted that Kageyama himself had ever noticed that.

He stepped closer and took his coffee back. The line breathed, slackened.

“Awful music, isn’t it?” Iwaizumi remarked.

“Yes,” said Kageyama, and Iwaizumi let out a low bark of a laugh.

“I’m glad you’re so honest, Kageyama.”

Kageyama removed the headphones and returned them to Iwaizumi.

“It’s easy to be honest if it’s you, Iwaizumi-san,” he said.

The afternoon was bright, brighter than the obnoxious guitar riffs that rattled inside his head. Iwaizumi slung his headphones back round his neck, swallowed the last of his coffee with a hearty swig, and tossed the empty paper cup into the bin. It hit the rim and fell to the floor, and Iwaizumi frowned; thought, _tch, embarrassing, I’m getting rusty again—_

Kageyama had not noticed. He was staring out at the train tracks, one hand resting on the handle of his suitcase, the other in his pocket. His lips were pressed together. It looked like he was biting them on the inside.

Iwaizumi clapped him on the shoulder, and let his hand stay there.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“I’m not,” said Kageyama, and paused. “I am.”

“The Team Japan kit looks good on you.”

“That’s not going to help me play better.”

“No,” said Iwaizumi. “It’s not. Be nervous, if you must. It’s okay, you know.”

Absently, Kageyama’s knuckles drummed out an erratic beat atop his suitcase. “I’m not nervous,” he said again, and he said it in the same way he said _I am_ , and Iwaizumi did not question.

He saw Kageyama cease his fidgeting, ball up his fist. It looked less like he was trying to punch something and more like he was trying to hold on to it, as carefully as he knew how. There was a time it would have looked like he was trying to punch something.

Iwaizumi’s hand was still on Kageyama’s shoulder. He felt it tense, relax, as Kageyama glanced at him.

A bell sounded, and a polite voice crackled on the speakers overhead. _The 13:43 to Tokyo, via Sendai, is now arriving. This train will pass through Fukushima, Utsunomiya, Ueno..._

“I’ll watch you on TV,” said Iwaizumi, and let go.

Kageyama’s lips twitched into a smile. “Yeah? That’d be nice.”

The train roared onto the platform with an ear-rending _whoosh_. It drowned out the drums that hammered on through those headphones of Iwaizumi’s, so that the only beat he heard was the one that coursed through his own body, from head to toe, a pulsing rhythm, and then everything stilled the way it did when the whistle went off.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“I’m not nervous,” he said again.

Kageyama cocked his head to one side, spun the ball in his fingers. It suited him, Iwaizumi thought, the Karasuno black. He had grown into it in a way he had never grown into anything real at Kitaiichi.

“That’s the second time you’ve said that,” said Kageyama, and tossed to him.

“Is it?” Iwaizumi asked, eyes tight on the ball.

He leapt, knocked it down hard. There were no nets in his way today, no blockers, only a dank patch of concrete in a fading carpark he had found behind his neighbourhood _combini_ , and a willing _kouhai_ who didn’t ask too many questions. Because he understood. Because he had better things to do than to ask questions. Because he cared. One, or all, or maybe none of the above. And Kageyama wasn’t his _kouhai_ any more, hadn’t been in years—

Kageyama collected the ball, stood to face him. “You haven’t lost your touch, Iwaizumi-san. I don’t know why you’re nervous.”

“You don’t have to sugarcoat things for me, Kageyama. I know I’m not as good as I used to be,” said Iwaizumi. He flexed his fingers, looked down at reddened knuckles, and grimaced.

“I’m not sugarcoating,” Kageyama said. He stopped abruptly, let the admission fill the space between them; and after a pause, he continued. “I didn’t say you were as good as you used to be. I said you haven’t lost your touch.”

Iwaizumi studied him. “There’s a difference, huh?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not good at words, Iwaizumi-san. You know that.”

“Nah, I get it. I’m out of practice, but it’s still in me somewhere, right?”

Kageyama nodded. “Yeah.”

The ball was still in his hands. He was holding it like he’d forgotten it was there. It was not too much of a stretch, Iwaizumi supposed, that for Kageyama, the ball had come to be an extension of himself, and perhaps it had always been that way, for someone like him.

 _Life isn’t fair,_ Oikawa had said once, from the sidelines.

 _It’s not,_ Iwaizumi agreed, with a smirk that turned into a grin. _You’ve got a shitty personality and good skills. Kageyama only has one of those._

And even Oikawa had not objected to the truth of that statement, merely crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall with a petulant _hmph_.

Iwaizumi heard his watch beep time on his wrist. He reached for his towel, let out a small groan as he worked out the crick in his neck, rolled his shoulders back. They ached like a creaky hinge that needed oiling. Too many hours, _too long_ , he knew, hunched over books and essays in the law library, as the snow melted on the other side of the window.

“Thanks, Kageyama. You’re doing me a big favour.”

“Am I?” asked Kageyama. “You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, you are. I know you don’t have much time these days, and you have Nationals to train for, and—god, you’re a _third year_ now, sometimes I forget.”

Kageyama shrugged. “I’m not going to do well in exams anyway. I’m not going to university.”

Iwaizumi had heard as much, through the grapevine. It was different hearing it from Kageyama.

“So you’ve decided, huh? Good for you.”

He threw himself down with a sigh and propped his arms up on his knees. Kageyama sat down next to him, cross-legged. The paint on the ground was cracked and peeling. From the high window at the back of the _combini_ , Iwaizumi heard the familiar refrain of an electro-pop song that had been _everywhere_ in his last year of junior high. It found its way unbidden out of his nostalgia now, an annoying earworm that hummed on the tip of his tongue.

He bit it off before, god forbid, he started singing along, and said to Kageyama, “You’ll be great.”

Kageyama’s brows knit together. “I don’t think I’ll get to play in a actual match for a while.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ll still be great.”

“Thanks. So will you.”

“Ha. It’s only _university volleyball tryouts_ , and I’m rusty as hell and two shades paler than the last time you saw me—”

Kageyama cut him off, setting the volleyball firmly down on the ground. The soft _thud_ was an echo that yanked Iwaizumi back to this version of reality.

“I brought you something,” said Kageyama abruptly. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a milk box. The last droplets of condensation still clung to its side.

Iwaizumi stared, and took it.

“Thanks. You didn’t have to. Like I said. _You’re_ doing me the favour here.”

Kageyama shook his head. “I was happy when you called me, Iwaizumi-san.”

He met Iwaizumi's gaze, held it steady with his own, every bit as penetrating as Iwaizumi remembered; It had changed, and yet, not at all. If it was the clear, open sky that it used to reflect, it was clearer now, with nowhere to hide. The clouds had broken apart. He had never learned moderation for that conviction of his, and that was his undoing and his stubborn glory.

In his voice, there burned a spark like the midday heat that caught the asphalt, and Iwaizumi waited, waited for it to simmer, waited for it to burst forth and embrace them both.

“Sometimes,” he heard himself admit, “I wonder if I wasted the past year studying. I hope you never have that feeling.”

A stark cry, a flurry of feathers overhead, made them both look up. They watched the crows scatter against the mountains.

“You're here now,” murmured Kageyama. Somehow, it sounded like he was saying it to himself as much as to Iwaizumi.

The sun was scorching on Iwaizumi's back. He was parched. His palms still smouldered, sweet and stinging. _Good,_ he thought. He’d missed this.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The clouds had broken apart. He had started out at a brisk walk, but as he crossed the road, sidestepped a lady walking her dog and the _STOP_ sign by the kerbside, he found his paces getting longer, quicker, _impatient_ , even—

Kageyama stood on the corner of the street, outside a Lawson’s with the _L_ fizzled out. They could not see it now, in the day. At night, they would walk out in search of instant noodles, and Iwaizumi would remark on how they hadn’t got round to fixing it in the month Kageyama was abroad.

Sprigs of fading _sakura_ were draped across the sidewalk. The last of the bloom would soon turn into rain.

Iwaizumi’s footsteps slowed. He bent over, caught his breath, and straightened.

“Here,” he said.

The apartment keys jangled as he threw them into the air. They were too dull, too well-used, to glint in the light, but Kageyama squinted and shielded his eyes anyway, caught them easily without a moment’s hesitation.

“They’re yours, if you’ll have them,” said Iwaizumi.

Kageyama closed his grip around the keychain. It seemed to fit right into his palm like he knew its shape, an impression cut into his hands.

“Okay,” he said, and it was as simple as that.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The last of the bloom would soon turn into rain.

Once, in a sudden downpour, Iwaizumi had heard the thundering on the pavement and he had glanced out the window, thinking only that he was grateful he was indoors. He had glimpsed, then, a figure dashing across the courtyard without a heed for shelter. At that time, Kageyama had not yet grown into all his limbs and he ran like he wanted to fight the storm.

The thumping beat had stayed with Iwaizumi. It remained as the seasons turned, and in time, he would come to learn that it had never wavered. If the mellowing of years had stripped them both of anything, it was not the thirst for more, for moments of crystal-clear truth that came in the shape of damp earth, cracked paint, and a fluttering on rough fingertips.

 

_Is that a cicada, Iwaizumi-san?_

_Yeah. But I’m gonna let it go. They only live for a few weeks anyway… I used to feel sorry for them, you know._

_You don’t anymore._

_No. They know their purpose, even with their short lives. I don’t think that’s so bad._

 

The blue of Kageyama's gaze shone through the balmy light. Iwaizumi flicked his fingers into the wind, and watched the cicada spread its gauzy wings, take off spiralling into the sky.

They had been climbing all this while, and they stood now on the top of a mountain.

 

 


End file.
